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Organizing Working-Class Communities: Lessons from POWER'S Experiences

Studies in Political Economy

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Title Organizing Working-Class Communities: Lessons from POWER'S Experiences
 
Creator Williams, Steve
 
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Description I want to thank the Socialist Project, and in particular Leo Panitch and
Sam Gindin, for making it possible for me to be here. I also want to thank
the Canadian people for allowing me to be in a country where I can proclaim
myself a socialist and not have to fear that I will end up on Fox News.
People Organized to Win Employment Rights’ (POWER’s)1 mission is
to eradicate poverty and oppression once and for all. When we wrote that
mission statement in 1997, we were very clear about its implications. Back
then, we were seeing an increase in the level of structural unemployment,
which forced more and more people out of working-class industries that
previously had allowed them to make ends meet, to raise families, and to
thrive in urban communities. More and more people were winding up
homeless on the streets. More and more people were winding up without
health insurance. More and more poor people were being criminalized and
vilified for being poor as a result of capitalist accumulation, but in the face
of these injustices, there was silence from the centres of power in our country.
We felt it was critical, absolutely critical, for working-class folks, low-income
people of colour, to have a space to be able to weigh in on the public policy
decisions that were affecting their lives, so five welfare recipients and I went
about building such an organization.
 
Publisher Studies in Political Economy
 
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Date 2010-05-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://spe.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/spe/article/view/13253
 
Source Studies in Political Economy; Vol 85 (2010): Social Movements & Economies
1918-7033
0707-8552
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://spe.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/spe/article/view/13253/10137
 
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